Student Interview with Karen Davis, President of United Poultry ConcernsA Meat and Dairy Industries Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

For billions of farmed animals on the planet, there is
no “welfare.” To have welfare means to fare well. When we think of welfare
this way, we realize how far removed the rhetoric is from the reality.

Fish are pulled out of the water to suffocate slowly
to death because they cannot breathe out of water.

We can choose courage over conformity. We can stand up
for animals and the planet, for all who are vulnerable, suffering, and
mistreated. We can teach by setting our best example in our daily life.

In March, a 7th grade student in Colorado asked United Poultry Concerns
for an interview for a class project at her school. In this project, she
explained in an email, “the students find a passion of theirs and either
inform others or find a solution and put it into action. If students are
feeling up for the challenge, they are encouraged to do both.”

Q. What is your view on the current situation of farmed
animal welfare?

A. For billions of farmed animals on the planet, there is no “welfare.” To
have welfare means to fare well. When we think of welfare this way, we
realize how far removed the rhetoric is from the reality. The majority of
animals raised on land and forced out of water for “food” are miserable.
Chickens, for example, who evolved in the tropical forests of southeast
Asia, are crowded and confined in filthy dark sheds filled with excrement
and toxic gases. They are genetically manipulated for flesh and eggs at the
expense of their happiness and wellbeing.

Fish are pulled out of the water to suffocate slowly to death because they
cannot breathe out of water. Mutilation of farmed animals is basic to animal
farming: debeaking, detoeing, tail docking, the list goes on. Unlike us,
these animals never receive painkillers when their body parts are cut off or
burned off.

The suffering of farmed animals is receiving much more attention now than it
did twenty years ago. Legislative campaigns, undercover investigations,
books, animal advocacy organizations including farmed animal sanctuaries,
and the internet – all are contributing to wider public knowledge of how
horribly animals are made to suffer for products that we do not need to eat
or drink or feed to children in order to be healthy and productive
individuals.

Q. What is your background with animal abuse and welfare?

A. I tell my story in “From Hunting Grounds to Chicken
Rights: My Story in an Eggshell” in Sister Species: Women, Animals, and
Social Justice, edited by Lisa Kemmerer, University of Illinois Press. This
book of engaging personal narratives by women activists is available from
United Poultry Concerns.

Q. What animals are in most danger at this time?

A. All animals on the planet are in danger of one or more
of these: Extinction, Incarceration, Habitat Loss, Family and Social
Disruptions, Genetic Pathologies. Animals from tigers to tortoises are in
danger of extinction particularly due to the destruction of their habitats
as well as to the poisons we put into the environment that destroy their
ability to produce healthy offspring. When animals lose the homeland they
need in order to thrive, raise their families, and feed themselves, they die
out.

Putting a few specimens of these animals in zoos is a fate worse than death
for them. We are destroying the rainforests in which countless numbers of
creatures live in ecological vibrancy, all for the sake of animal
consumption. Our behavior toward the earth and its creatures may be “legal”;
but by any sane, ethical standard, it is criminal and immoral.

Instead of extinction, farmed animals suffer the opposite fate. They are
forced, through artificial and obscene breeding procedures, to endure
endless proliferation. The healthy and fit condition these animals evolved
in nature to enjoy has been degraded and defiled against their will by
humans, causing them to suffer from diseases they did not experience until
they were “domesticated.”

Q. What would solve the problem?

A. The solution would be a transformation of human
attitudes and behaviors toward the world we share with the other occupants
of our planet. As long as we pride ourselves on being OMNIVORES – devourers
of everything – the earth will continue to degrade. Our consumer behavior is
causing Global Warming, Species Extinctions, Habitat Erosion, Environmental
Depletion, Animal Agony, and more. Our consumer behavior proliferates
garbage and toxic waste across the planet into the depths of the oceans and
the air we breathe.

Unless we choose to respect and cherish the world we live in, the problems
we are causing will grow. A question is whether we have the capability and
the will to develop mentally, emotionally and spiritually, or whether we are
doomed to repeat our destructive patterns, over and over, including the
rationalizations that perpetuate these patterns.

Q. What steps can we take to make the world a better,
happier place?

A. We can choose to buy and eat foods that are animal-free.
Animal agribusiness is a major cause of global warming, and regardless of
how animal products are labeled to pacify people, the animals embodied in
these products were, and are, raised and killed inhumanely, stripped of
their dignity.

We can use cloth and canvas shopping bags instead of plastic bags. We can
make every effort to reuse and recycle (especially reuse) materials instead
of throwing everything away and buying new stuff all the time. Instead of
viewing ourselves as consumers first and foremost, we can think of ourselves
and act like a Citizen: a citizen of the earth as well as of our community.

We can choose courage over conformity. We can stand up for animals and the
planet, for all who are vulnerable, suffering, and mistreated. We can teach
by setting our best example in our daily life.

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